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I was slightly curious and now I regret it.

I didn't know what this was so I found the bestest picture I could in GIS:

(http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/1194/legendoftheseekergalnd9.jpg)

Really horrible.  Might be okay if you never read the "Sword of Truth" series.

Oooooooooh is that what it's based off of?  I saw all these ads for it and was thinking it sounded familiar for some reason.  So was it as god awful as the SoT books?

That sure as fuck isn't what I pictured Richard as looking like, and I thought Khalan was a blonde.

It might be but it isn't.  The problem is if you enjoyed the 1st few books in the series (which i did) you will probably end up getting hooked into watching this peice of crap on a regular basis.

I don't regret watching this because I want 2 hours of my life back (okay yes i do), i mostly regret watching it because having caught the beginning I will probably watch more of them.  I need an intervention, maybe going out to get drunk next time it is on will break the chain.

It's easy to break the chain.

None of the sex, nudity or S&M stuff will make it into the series, ever.  Ta da no more reason to watch!

I started watching it because it looked like the kinda thing I'd like as a kid back when I first discovered D&D. I'm pretty sure I would have liked it if I was still that kid. Now, not so much.

I remember picking up a Terry Goodkind book from my brother in law's bookshelf and trying to read it.  I wanted to set it on fire it was so bad.  I don't remember the name but there were like 10000 of them in the series.  I'll have no problem avoiding this tv show!

I read all 8 or 9 of the SoT series over the last 10 years. It started off strong and just got worse and worse, but the last two were ok.

Time to bore everyone!

1) Kahlan was not a blonde in the book. They cast her well. They cast Zedd well. Richard is ok.

2) Kahlan has no idea how to fight in the book - at least not until Richard starts training her. In the show she is a dual-wielding ninja.

3) The D'Harans bring down the boundary with a fucking catapult!?

4) In the show, The Book of Counted Shadows gets opened by Richard once and then burned. It is the keystone to the entire fucking first book! Before the book even begins, Richard has memorized and destroyed it. At the end of the book, he purposefully recites it in error to defeat the bad guy. HOW THE FUCK CAN YOU CHANGE THIS PART?!  Is the final confrontation a lame duel?

5) The show gets Kahlan's power half right.

6) At the end of the second episode, Kahlan says "Finding Darken Rahl will be hard. He will move from castle to castle and temple to temple." WHAT. THE. FUCK. There is one castle in the book and no fucking temples anywhere.

7) Lastly, in the web promotion video, Terry Goodkind says that "yes, there are differences compared to the book but they make it better!" The guy, whose entire series self-righteously bludgeons the reader about being true to oneself, basically admits he sold out.

Still, I will keep watching because there just aren't that many decently acted fantasy shows on.

I haven't been able to get into Goodkind's books either, even when a couple of friends tried to force them on me.

Ya, Richard was all wrong.  Basically they tried to make him into Luke Skywalker.

I read the first few, and have picked up later books over the years.  It gets worse and worse.  After he was done ripping shit straight shift from Robert Jordan (and Goodkind fans will fight you to this to no end, but at least Jordan says "Yes I borrowed stuff from Arthurian legend.. just like Orient legend and Norse legend." while Goodkind says "Oh no, it's all completely original!")  he moved on to Ayn Rand and I'm sure other books I didn't catch. I think there was a bit of Shannara in there as well, but I've only read one book in that series.

The guy's a hack who sells well to teenagers because of the sex and violence.


Hm yeah I wasn't sure if she was or not.  For some reason she's a blonde in my head.  The curviness they got just right, IMO. Too bad we won't get to see her naked leading a charge of powder-white naked men on horseback.

2) Wtf? Really?  :uhrr: 

So how'd they fuck-up the power?  Remove the absolute obedience part, or add in some other kind of stupid or defense?

Read an interview with the guy who plays Richard on scifi.com. Wow, he sounds like an airhead. Doubt he ever read SoT or any other book period.

It is just not clear in the show what the power really does. She uses it once in each of the first episodes and the guy just turns around and starts fighting his own men and eventually gets killed. None of the "How may I serve you mistress?" absolute-mymindisgone-Iwilldowhateveryousay aspect of the power is even hinted at.

Also in the book, when Richard witnesses the power the first time in the fight against the quad, there is a visible effect - like a mini-shockwave.

Now that I write it out, I could easily be accused of nitpicking.

kind of hard to do the FX for "thunder without a sound" is that the same as silent but deadly?  Also, to be fair, the 1st few times she uses the power in the book the target doesn't say much and dies pretty fast.


2) exactly - "Too bad we won't get to see her naked leading a charge of powder-white naked men on horseback." was Kahlan's first armed combat scene (book 2) and the only thing Richard has shown her is some pointers with a bow.  I think this is more of an author fuck up, Book 1 - Doesn't really fight and gee these types of activities were frowned upon as I got older sort of vibe, Book 2 kicks ass and my father taught me sort of vibe.

I've decided to reread the 1st 4 books and not watch another episode of the series, almost done with book 2 and am contemplating playing the "Richard is a real special person" drinking game but I am pretty sure this would land me in the hospital as that phrase appears every 3rd chapter or so almost verbatim.

I am a fan of the series but no one should read Temple of the Winds.  The idea that you would read it a second time is disturbing.

Is that the plague one?  The series pretty much started to careen off course once Richard escaped the Palace of the Prophets. I just want to see how the TV show handles the final confrontation with Darken Rahl. Especially the part where Darken Rahl pours liquid lead down the throat of a 10 year old boy during the climactic ceremony.  :drill: :grin:

They haven't gotten any better, but they haven't gotten any worse.  My main justifications for continuing to watch it are:

1) Ever since Roar was canceled I've been craving more fantasy on TV

2) Kahlan is smoking hot in HD

3) I like the portrayal of Zedd

The weird thing is I read a bunch of the books -- up to and including (I think) the Temple of the Winds -- 10-15 years ago, and I remember absolutely nothing that's happened in the TV series.  I vaguely remember Richard's brother being a dick and him being separated from Zedd for a while, but I think that took up like half of the first book, but about 10 minutes of the TV show.  Other than that, nothing here is familiar.  A village of potion-sellers?  What?

Maybe the books were so shitty I just subconsciously decided not to remember anything in them.

On pure happenstance of, "Fuck it's Sunday night, I need a distraction from my Dad and Fox is showing some shitty movie" last week, I caught that episode.  Nope, it wasn't in the book. The series has completely diverged from the books at this point, in the name of maintaining a serial. *  The series is as true to the books as Hercules with Kevin Sorbo was to the myths.  Given the source material in question, this can't be a bad thing.

* Key "wtf" divergences:

- All wizards in the Midlands were killed long before this. The last one died saving Khalan from the Quad.
- Having Zedd put a Rada'han on another wizard was way out there for a number of reasons. The least of which being Zedd sees the devices as abominations.

I know too much about this shitty, shitty series.

I managed to veer away from this after the 1st 2 episodes but based on the little info snippets in the interactive TV guide the show no longer even loosely resembles the books.  I'll second Zedd as being 1 of the few reasons to watch, btw is he being played by the gyrocopter guy from the Road Warrior?

He's the guy, yep. He was also in Beyond Thunderdome.
Bruce Spence - Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Spence)

Jesus fucking Christ. Fuck this. I am not watching this ever again. The producers can go to hell and die in an ass fire.

It's the fact that he buries the kid in sand up to his neck, then spends a few weeks earning his trust so the kid volunteers to do it.

Frankly, Terry Goodkind hates his characters, has a fascination with sex and torture that makes Ann Rice's shit look normal, and wrote one semi-decent story cribbed together from his betters. The problem was he kept writing after that, and when he ran out of stories to steal, he just started sticking Any Rand speeches into people's mouths.

As others have said, the show really has little or nothing to do with the books at this point and that's just as well. So far I'm liking the characters the writers have created far more than the objectivist supermen Terry Goodkind came up with.

It's a perfectly good swords and sorcery show with a few Sword of Truth trappings.

It does have a nice early Herc/ Xena feel to it.  I still think the lead's a little too lean, myself, but he works.  Abandoning the book's storyline can only be a good thing, but the Rada'han thing bugged the fuck out of me because the Zedd character is the best one out of the books.

Hah, I'll admit that I was a little annoyed when they introduced the Sisters of the Light an episode or two ago and completely invalidated huge amounts of plot from the books in about 30 seconds.

I just have to keep telling myself that its got nothing at all to do with the Terry Goodkind books except a few character names and I'm OK.

Watched the double pilot. It wasn't at all that awful. Just a little but I'm not spoiled with fantasy that seems to actually have some kind of budget.

As for staying true to the awesome authorship of Terry Goodkind.

Well, who gives a shit. :oh_i_see:

Edit: Wrong author, the right series.

Haha. The guy playing Zedd was this dude in the Star Wars:

(http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff26/stuabrtow/TionMedon-BruceSpence.jpg)

The series might have been better served as an adult animated feature on cable, but, oh well. Could have been worse.

He's also this guy:

(http://www.tolkienforums.com/mouthofsauron.jpg)

:awesome_for_real:

That guy is great!

Oh yes. It makes you wonder what is it in an actor that, despite extensive CGI, inches of make-up and massive voice distortion, still gets through as convincing?

I just finished watching the latest couple of episodes.  They actually didn't do too bad a job introducing the Mord-Sith.

By law, Bruce Spence is one of the Holy Chosen who must appear in every movie filmed in Australia. Jack Thompson, Bill Hunter and Bryan Brown are also on that list.

Spence was also the Trainman in the Matrix films.

More detail on this please. I figured they were just going to cut them out.

Well they went into a little detail about the training of the Mord-Sith, how they had to kill a parent, how the agiel causes as much pain to them when they use it as they inflict. I just assumed they'd either be cut out of the story entirely or turned into some kind of S&M leather fantasy but it wasn't bad at all.

They did make a major change by leaving Denna alive at the end of it but they made her a pretty good character so I assume she'll be a recurring character.

In between conference calls, so I started watching this on Hulu.  I've never read the books, but the tv show is fun to play NAME THAT reference - I was honestly surprised that Richard wasn't screaming UNCLE OWEN! AUNT BERU! when he came back to find his house burned down.

Seriously, wow.  It's proving to be awful enough that I can't even ignore it and do more productive things, like websurf.

I caught the Mord-Sith one on Hulu this weekend. 

My god that woman was hot.

Oh, a clip show!  How could you?!

That's a big part of the appeal of the show so far.  That, and Kahlan's combination of flowy wardrobe + being-a-ninja + slo-mo makes for some rather beautiful shots.

Overall, this show makes me feel that I probably missed half the fun of Xena and Hercules way-back-when.

I was a big fan of those shows, but in many ways this one is actually superior.  The fight choreography is way better, for one.

I do miss Ted Raimi and Bruce Campbell in supporting roles, though.

Ted did get a bit part, though.  Bruce is working on better things, so I can't feel too bad for the loss of him.

I still enjoy this for what it is.

Watching this now - my god, they poured her into that outfit.

That's the main reason I couldn't bring myself to object to them having the character live when she didn't in the book. :drill:

Nicci from the books supposedly blows away even Kahlan in looks. I wonder if they will get that far.

I have a soft spot in my heart for genre television that isn't the usual IP or done by the usual suspects. (Whedon etc) This just wrapped up it's first season, I've only seen about 5 episodes but it's pretty good. Sort of in the same vein as shows like Hercules / Xena but less campy.

It helps that the lead female character has lovely eyes.

I'm embarrassed to say that I'm reading books of the series this is based on right now.  I think I'm going to stop after this second book, because the author is entirely into his S&M, or something. 

Heh once you get past the Mord-Sith the S&M stuff tones down a lot. That's not necessarily a good thing because it leaves him plenty of room to lecture his readers on the virtues of Ayn Rand.

Yes, Legend, Seeker, all that. I watch.
*cough (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=15201.0)*

Woops I didn't even notice this was a new thread.

I've watched random episodes and I feel like I'm watching 4th Ed D&D. Encounter Power. Daily Power. The Hero becomes bloodied and uses a power to kill the 2 minions. No Dragons though :(

The episode with the painter I thought was a quest from Oblivion?

It also helps that the series has writers far, far better than Goodkind.  They're not stellar, "OMG YOU MUST WATCH," writers, but they're still leagues better.

Yes, Hawkbit, stop after the 2nd book.  I slogged through many more than I'm willing to admit only because I'd started the series a year after the first was published and thought it might get better.  It didn't.  It also didn't stop ripping off Jordan for a number of books. Who, admittedly, ripped off older stuff, but some of the early Jordan-Goodkind stuff was just  :uhrr: worthy.  "Really? You thought nobody would catch that, TG?"

Hell, the S&M sex was some of the best parts of the series.

Jordan, as in Robert Jordan?  My wife is all over WoT.  I've tried reading it and can't get past the first 100 pages.  Should I give them another shot?

Yep, Robert Jordan.  Only read them up to book 6 if you want to give it a shot.  The beginning of the first book was supposedly overly dry and slow on purpose up until the Trolloc attack.  RJ mentioned years ago that was his "homage to Tolkien" and it feels laborious because of it.

 There's no sex, unlike TG, and the characterizations/ mannerisms that become a running joke after book 3.  By the time you hit book 6 they'll either be on your nerves enough that you'll want to quit or you will have enjoyed it enough to want to continue onward.   It is to your advantage that you'd be coming in after he's died and the ghostwriter will be coming out with the final book soon.

Oops didn't realize there was an existing thread that had already mentioned Kahlan's HD hotness.

Final book(s). It was split in three because of the size, to be released Nov 2009, Nov 2010 and Nov 2011.

Also, some sex does occur, but nothing explicit.

Yeah, but comparing the two it's so non-explicit as to not be worth mentioning.  Also, it's  more fun to say "There is none" and then have the new reader go, "Wait, what?!" when it comes to that point.   :grin:

Didn't realize that it'd been split into 3 books.  Considering the size of FoH and LoC vs PoD, I'm more inclined to believe some money grubbing is at work than believe it couldn't have been one or two books.

A long, but detailed explanation for the split (http://www.brandonsanderson.com/article/56/Splitting-AMOL) (by Brandon Sanderson, the guy who took over for RJ).

But yeah, off-topic. On topic:

They mentioned it, but gave-up the necklace to the cursed princess so she wouldn't turn into the were-creature.  However, since Rada'han seem to be so effing common in this version of the world, you wonder why they don't just pick up another at the local corner store.

Charisma Carpenter looks good in Mord-Sith red. But not good enough to cover for some atrocious acting.

Arise!

So, I mentioned in some other thread (Spartacus, probably), that I had started watching this show and thought it was weak.  Well, fuck.  I'm kinda hooked now.  I'm about 5 or 6 episodes into season two, and while it's campy schlock, and can't seem to look away.  I think it has something to do with the fact that the two chicks in the Seeker's party are just so outrageously hot that I can't bear not looking at them.  That Kahlan chick is hot, and the girl who plays the Mord'Sith, Cara, is so overwhelmingly and painfully hot that I want her to torture me with her little magical stick thingy.  God damn.

Anyway, it looks like there's a fair chance that there won't even be a third season? 

That would be sad.  It's a bit of a guilty pleasure, but I've been enjoying this show immensely so far.

Give it another ten episodes, and they add Katrina Law from Spartacus as another Mord Sith. Really, this show is nothing but Hec/Xena mk.2, but it does it well and it takes no shame in filling every episode with eye candy.

They best not cancel my legend of the cara.

It's a pretty sad commentary on what kind of human being I am, but one of my favorite parts of the show was when Cara decided to be a little bit good, she put her Mord'Sith outfit back on and was kind enough not to zip it up all the way.  Mind blowing.

Thanks for the pic. 

You have no idea, between her and Sara from chuck, its a wonder I don't explode where I sit.

You say "nothing but" like that's not an incredibly awesome thing.   :drill:

I love fantasy, but I just can't sit thru this stuff.  Its just been canceled anyway so there's that.

This isn't a "fantasy" show. It's an action/comedy set in a far away land where everyone is hot.

God dam it, all the good shows get canceled to dam early, but the shit goes on forever.

Well isn't that just fucking great.

It hasn't been announced officially yet, but all signs point to it.

And that is that for this series. Nice clean wrap up (mostly) to end the show. The ending deus ex would have come accross as pure cheese on any other show, but when your entire show is built around cheese, I guess it fits. They even squeezed in one more Spartacus cast member for a bit part.

I am actually going to miss this show.

I'm going to miss it as well. I have no idea why they canceled it.

Is that absolutely 100% confirmed now?

Haven't seen the last 4 episodes yet.  I don't want it to end yet.  There is way too much eye candy in this show for it to be cancelled.

Yes. All the good shows die young.